Inventing The Rest Of Our Lives: Women In Second Adulthood

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Summary: Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood
Review: After anticipating the arrival of this book (that I ordered some time before publication after hearing of it), I was disappointed. Although the subject is timely, the writing style smacks of academia and therefore, will not appeal to the mainstream (reader). Because I'm tenacious by nature, I finished the book, but found my mind wandering throughout because it simply did not hold my attention. Too bad - it could have been inspirational!

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Summary: Not the Same Old Spin on Middle Age - Thankfully!
Review: If you charted your 20's, 30's and 40's with Gail Sheehy's "Passages" and found nothing to help you through the next part of your life except books on menopause and others telling you that gray hair and an expanding waistline are better than youth and beauty, you'll love this realistic, empathetic and, yes, inspiring book! Like the journalist she is, Levine has interviewed hundreds of women, and many scientists and other experts, to understand what really happens to us, psychologically as well as medically, as we navigate these years. She makes a good case for her thesis, which is that not only our bodies are changing - our brains, needs and priorities are, too. The "fertile void" is a brilliant and spot-on description of the chaos and confusion of second adulthood that plunges every woman who's defined herself up to now by her obligations to others or the demands of her career (and often both) into a sometimes painful reexamination of her life - what's in it that we treasure, what's missing that we need or want, what possibilities still exist for making a difference in the world as well as in our own lives, and where the energy will come from for for realizing them. My book club just started reading it, and we've been burning up the phone wires to discuss it even before our next meeting. A must-read for every woman who reaches a landmark birthday still wondering, "What am I going to be when I grow up?"

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Summary: Excerpt
Review: There's a great excerpt from this book in the January '05 issue of More Magazine.

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Summary: Smart Women Think Ahead
Review: This is one of the most inspiring books I've read in a long time. For those of us in our 50s and 60s, there's more ahead than retirement and taking care of aging parents, aging men, and growing grandchildren. Levine gives us stories of regular women who have tackled brand new careers, learned skills they always wanted to learn but never had time for, renegotiated their marriages and renewed their love-lives. And she also gives us scientific research that shows women's brains have a growth spurt in the 50s that renews our strength and our intellectual curiosity. Keep this book by your bedside and read it every night and your morning will be brighter.

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Summary: When Divorce is Part of the Reinvention
Review: Unfortunately, as Publisher's Weekly points out, this book is geared to economically comfortable women. Nevertheless, it provides a useful framework for all women to examine the rest of their lives. If that means considering divorce, then consider not only this book, but also "The Complete Guide to Protecting Your Financial Security When Getting a Divorce."

As an AARP study pointed out last year, it is becoming increasingly common for mid-life women to initiate divorce from a marriage that isn't necessarily bad, but isn't going to lead them where they want their lives to go. Without commenting on the "rightness" of such a decision, I will say that in doing that, it's crucial to secure an economically equitable divorce that isn't necessarily a 50-50 split. For example, in a long-term marriage in which the woman has been primarily a homemaker and/or executive hostess for her husband's career climb or business success, an equitable settlement might very well entail a combination of spousal support and more-than-half settlement in order to make up for the fact that the wife has little earning power that would enable her to continue living a lifestyle that approximates the marital lifestyle. Conversely, she might expect the settlement to go the other way if she's the one who has been the economically powerful spouse, as is occurring with increasing frequency these days.

Whatever the settlement, its fairness to both sides is crucial if the divorce is to be kept non-toxic, allowing both parties to move on in as healthy a manner as possible with their new lives. So in no way am I advocating a "money grab" strategy for divorce.

To find out how to accomplish an economically equitable divorce that preserves as much of the assets as possible for division by minimizing adversarial-attorney fees, you might find it helpful to refer to my book, "The Complete Guide to Protecting Your Financial Security When Getting a Divorce."